Iran closes Strait of Hormuz again over US blockade

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said on Saturday that its troops came under “small-arms fire from non-state actors” in southern Lebanon, killing one peacekeeper.

The attack occurred during a UNIFIL patrol clearing explosives along the road in the village of Ghandouriyeh, the UNIFIL statement said. Three more peacekeepers were injured, two of them seriously.

“UNIFIL condemns this deliberate attack on peacekeepers engaged in their mandated tasks,” UNIFIL said. “The work of explosive ordnance disposal teams is vital in the mission’s area of operations especially in the wake of the recent hostilities.”

The peacekeeping force launched its own probe into the incident, saying that “initial assessment indicates the fire came from non-state actors (allegedly Hezbollah).” 

“UNIFIL calls on the Government of Lebanon to swiftly initiate an investigation to identify and hold the perpetrators accountable for the crimes committed against UNIFIL peacekeepers,” it added.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that a French peacekeeper was killed in an attack against UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon Saturday, blaming Hezbollah for the attack.

“Everything suggests that responsibility for this attack lies with Hezbollah,” Macron said on X. “France demands that the Lebanese authorities immediately arrest the perpetrators and take their responsibilities alongside UNIFIL.”

Lebanon’s prime minister had condemned the attack and ordered a probe.

The Lebanese military, which also condemned the attack, said in a statement carried by the state news agency NNA that it was a result of “an exchange of fire with armed men.”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun vowed in a phone call with Macron to prosecute those responsible for the attack.

No date has been set for the next round of Pakistan-brokered US-Iran peace talks, Iran’s deputy foreign minister told reporters on Saturday.

“Until we agree on the framework, we cannot set the date,” Saeed Khatibzadeh told journalists on the sidelines of an annual Turkish diplomatic forum in the southern province of Antalya.

“Now we are focusing on finalizing the framework of understanding between two sides. We don’t want to enter into any negotiation or meeting which is due to failure which can be [a] pretext for another round of escalation,” he added. 

The Iranian official stressed that Tehran “would not accept to be an exception from the international law” in any negotiations.

“Anything ​that we are going to be committed [to] will be ​within the international regulations and international law.”

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Saturday condemned what he said was an attack on French United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

“I condemn in the strongest terms today’s attack on members of the French battalion in UNIFIL,” Salam said on X, referring to the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) in Lebanon.

He said he gave “strict instructions for an immediate investigation to uncover the circumstances of this attack and hold the perpetrators accountable.”

A UNIFIL spokesperson told the French AFP news agency that an incident involving their peacekeepers took place in the southern municipality of Ghandouriyeh, stopping short of providing details regarding the nature of the attack or its casualties.

The Israeli military on Saturday announced it has killed people in Lebanon for crossing what it called a “yellow line,” the first such reference to a demarcation line in southern Lebanon since a 10-day ceasefire came into effect.

The “yellow line” in question seemed to mimic a similar one created after a ceasefire agreement which ended the 2-year war in Gaza last October. As per the agreement, Israeli forces were allowed to remain within that “yellow line” in Gaza for at least the first phase of the ceasefire.

However, the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon initially made no mention of such a line.

“Over the past 24 hours, [Israeli military] forces operating south of the Yellow Line in southern Lebanon identified terrorists who violated the ceasefire understandings and approached the forces from north of the Yellow Line in a manner that posed an immediate threat,” the military said on X.

Iran’s supreme leader has warned that the country’s navy was ready to defeat US forces.

Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement carried on his Telegram channel that Iran’s “brave navy stands ready to make the enemies taste the bitterness of new defeats.”

The statement was issued after a short reprieve was soon interrupted when Iranonce more shuttered the strategic Strait of Hormuz after a brief reopening, accusing the US of violating the ceasefire agreement by maintaining its blockade on Iranian ports.

Iran’s new supreme leader, appointed following the killing of his father Ali Khamenei in a joint US-Israeli strike which sparked the war, has yet to be seen in public since he assumed the top position in the country.

Iranian gunboats have fired on a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, hours after the Iranian military apparently reversed a decision to reopen the critical waterway.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center said on Saturday that it had received a report that “two gunboats linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard” fired at the tanker some 20 nautical miles northeast of Oman.

The firing was not preceded by a radio challenge, UKMTO cited the tanker’s captain as saying. The vessel and its crew were reported safe.

Earlier reports suggested that several ships were able to pass through the strait in the brief window Iran kept it open since Friday.

Egypt is working closely with mediators including Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to de-escalate the crisis and reach lasting peace between the United States and Iran, its foreign minister said on Saturday.

In statements on the sidelines of a forum in Turkey’s costal city of Antalya on Saturday, Egyptian top diplomat Badr Abdelatty said Cairo and Islamabad were working “very hard” to deliver a “final agreement between the US and Iran.”

“We hope to do so [reach an agreement] in the coming days,” Abdelatty said, noting that “not only us in the region, but the whole world is suffering from the continuation of this war.”

In a Foreign Ministry statement, Abdelatty said Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were coordinating a broader regional effort focused on preventing renewed escalation and paving the way for a post-war security agreement.

Abdelatty had met with counterparts from the three other countries during the Antalya forum on Friday.

He said the meeting heads discussed means of containing the repercussions of the war on international maritime traffic, food and regional security, fuel prices and means of overcoming these issues and their impact on the global economy.

Moscow on Saturday welcomed the Trump administration’s decision to issue another temporary sanctions waiver for Russian oil, as the global oil market remains exceedingly turbulent.

“Many countries, including the US, understand the crucial and systemic importance of Russian oil and gas for the stability of world markets,” Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s envoy for foreign economic relations, wrote on Telegram.

Western countries have largely maintained sanctions imposed on Russia over three years ago over its invasion of Ukraine, with most countries seeking an alternative source for their energy supplies.

But Washington decided on the waiver after its joint attacks on Iran, carried out alongside Israel, prompted the Islamic republic to close the critical Strait of Hormuz, creating a massive global energy crisis.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the United States and Israel’s war with Tehran has so far not led to people fleeing to Europe despite internal displacement in Iran and Lebanon.

He stressed, however, that authorities in European countries were still taking precautionary measures.

Click here for more on Dobrindt’s comments in our Germany news blog.

Iran has reversed its decision of reopening the strategic Strait of Hormuz, as the US maintains a blockade on the Islamic republic’s ports.

Iran’s military announced the decision in a statement carried by Iranian media.

The strait, through which a fifth of crude oil and petroleum products pass, was reopened on Friday after remaining mostly closed amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, effectively creating among the worst energy crises in modern history.

Iran has partially reopened its airspace to international flights crossing the eastern part of the country, its Civil Aviation Authority said on Saturday.

“Air routes in the eastern section of the country’s airspace are open for international flights transiting through Iran,” the French AFP news agency quoted the Iranian authority as saying.

Several airports reopened at 07:00 a.m. local time (0330 GMT) on Saturday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

However, flight tracking websites such as Flightradar24 continued to show no activity over any parts of Iranian airspace, even over three hours after the scheduled reopening.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday concluded a trip to Turkey, the last leg of a three-country diplomatic tour aimed to end the US-Israeli war on Iran.

“I leave Antalya, with fond memories and a renewed commitment to further strengthening the enduring fraternal bonds between our two nations, and to continuing our close cooperation to advance dialogue and diplomacy for lasting peace and stability in the region,” Sharif said in a post on X.

The Pakistani prime minister attended on Friday the Antalya forum and met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on its sidelines.

Before that, Sharif was in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, where he met the Gulf countries’ leaders amid a flurry of diplomacy aimed at mediating an end to the war.

Pakistan has emerged as a key mediator between Iran and the United States, and the two warring parties conducted talks in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on April 11 and 12.

The South Asian country borders Iran and has close defense ties with the United States, with Washington officially designating it a “major non-NATO ally.”

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US President Donald Trump said he may pull out of the ceasefire with Iran if a long-term deal to end the war is not agreed upon by Wednesday.

“Maybe I won’t extend it, but the blockade (on Iranian ports) is going to remain,” Trump told reporters Friday on Air Force One en route to Washington from Phoenix, Arizona. 

“So ‌you have a blockade, and ​unfortunately ⁠we have to start ⁠dropping bombs ​again,” he added.

Trump also said, without elaborating, there had been some “pretty good news” ‌regarding ⁠Iran.

“We had some ​pretty good news 20 minutes ​ago, but it ​seems to ‌be going very well in the Middle ‌East with Iran,” Trump ‌told reporters ​aboard Air Force One.

Cryptically, he also announced he would make a public statement on Saturday, saying only that it would not be about Iran. 

The United States renewed a waiver allowing countries to purchase sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products at sea for approximately one month.

The Treasury Department posted the license on its website late Friday, allowing countries to purchase Russian oil loaded on vessels from Friday through May 16.

The license is part of the Trump administration’s effort to control global energy prices, which shot higher during the US-Israeli war with Iran and recently slightly dropped on news of a temporary ceasefire for peace negotiations.

It replaces a 30-day waiver that expired on April 11. The license excludes transactions involving Iran, Cuba, and North Korea.

On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington would not be renewing the waivers for Russian and Iranian oil. The Iranian waiver is set to expire on Sunday.

US lawmakers from both political parties slammed the administration, saying the sanctions waivers would help the economies of Iran and Russia while they are at war with the US and Ukraine, respectively.